Updated on Feb 06, 2012

Objective:

Research Questions:

Did rankings for the food that was pictured in the video or discussed in the audio recording increase? How did this compare to the rankings of food that was not pictured or discussed (control food)?

Overall, were people more influenced by the video or audio recording?

Companies use a variety of ways to try to convince people to purchase their products. Two common methods of advertising include television and the radio, however, it is not clear which mode of advertisement is more effective when it comes to selling food. This experiment will begin to explore this issue and evaluate whether people are more influenced by audio or visual advertisements for food.

Materials:

Computer with video and audio editing capabilities

Video recorder

Audio recorder

Experimental Procedure

Pick 10 different types of food. Prepare a survey that asks people how much they feel like eating those items (rank on a scale of 1 to 10).

Create a short video with commercials that show images of 5 of the selected types of food.

Create an audio recording of several commercials that describe 5 of the different types of food.

Show the video to many test subjects and have many other test subjects listen to the audio recording.

Ask test subjects to retake the survey.

Evaluate your results. Compare surveys to see how rankings changed.

Sample table for recording data:

Sum of Survey Rankings

Before: Test Food

Before: Control Food

After: Test Food

After: Control Food

Audio

Subject 1

Subject 2

…

Video

Subject 1

Subject 2

…

Terms/Concepts: Types of advertising; How does advertising influence people?; What is a control?

Megan Doyle is a scientist, researcher, and writer based in Dallas, Texas. She received her Ph.D. after completing years of work in a laboratory and now focuses on writing about recent advances in the field of oncology. Always passionate about learning, Megan enjoys keeping up to date on breakthroughs in all fields of science.

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